


Ghosts and Weighted Memories

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Roswell (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:52:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9233957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: It's Christmas again and Maria has a lot on her mind. A visit from a friend and a talk with the love of her existence helps ease out her worries.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guerins](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=guerins).



> Written for ~guerins for the Roswell Gift Exchange on Tumblr

It was in moments like this that she remembered why she had made the choices she had. A pair of dark, expressive eyes and a pair of arms that were always there to hold her close or catch her when she stumbled… the man that those things belonged to did more than hold her heart. He was the other half of her soul. Moments like these when she was walking alone and her mind was so full of memories and current events that she sometimes felt overwhelmed by emotion.

Moments that she knew she only had to walk a little further and Michael would open the door and pull her against him and she could let go of her tension and her worries for at least a little while.

It was another Christmas away from her mom and she was feeling melancholy. Oh, no one else would be able to tell because she had gotten really good at hiding her thoughts and feelings. In the first few weeks of travel, Michael and Isabel had patiently worked with her so that she would be able to make her face less expressive. Turns out that the things about her that made her such an engaging performer were the same things that could get them all in trouble with the FBI agents hunting them. Over time, she had developed a really good poker face; a mask that would hide anything that she didn’t want the world to see.

Tonight she had played one of the best musical sets of her life in the small town bar that they had been staying in for a few weeks. It had been surprisingly easy for her and Liz to pick up waitressing jobs in whatever town they took refuge. Sometimes Michael would get work as a cook if he didn’t find a place where he could work on vehicles or something else he was drawn to.

It wasn’t until she was walking through the falling snow toward their hotel that she was able to let some of the emotions she had locked up to bleed through into her mind. She missed her mom and the Parkers. She missed Sheriff Valenti -- he would always be the sheriff to her -- and some of the quirkiness of her hometown. Granted, she had always had dreams of making it big and leaving Roswell, but those dreams had been on her terms. Terms which would have allowed her to come back and visit everything that she had secretly loved about her tourist trap of a town.

_“Do you regret it?”_

Maria’s steps didn’t falter even as she smiled. She had gotten used to having Alex’s ghost show up to talk to her when she was feeling the most melancholy. She hadn’t told anyone else that this happened because she didn't want to find out that this was all in her mind; her imagination working overtime. She didn’t believe any of that because he seemed to show up when she needed him the most; when she needed to talk to her best friend.

“Hey, Alex. Fancy meeting you here.”

_“Well, it’s Christmas and one of my favorite people in the world looks far too sad on this night. Especially when we both know that your boyfriend and my beloved Christmas Nazi have been working their adorable Czechoslovakian tails off to make the holiday special.”_

“They have indeed been working on something impressive,” Maria allowed. “They’ve been very determined to keep it a secret from Liz and I. I guess they think that this year has been harder than the rest of them.”

_“Well, DeLuca, you did almost die and needed Max, Liz and Michael to get you healed and pulled through. That might have a little bit to do with it.”_

“Michael still denies that he had any part in healing me. He said that there was no way he had any kind of healing power after Max took the King Mark back from him.” Maria murmured. “But I know what I felt and what I saw. The others saw it, too. Michael was the one that brought me back from the brink.”

_“He had never been in that position before, though,”_ Alex pointed out to her. _“The love of his life was dying in his arms and his intellect took a backseat to his emotions. His emotional storm took control and guided his powers so that he could save you.”_

“I love that you’ve created a whole science and psychology of how their powers work.”

_“Psychology **is** considered a science, Maria. However, you still haven’t answered my question. You of all people should know not to try to deflect the subject to another path when I’m asking questions. That has never worked well for you.”_

“Which question was that?”

_“Do you regret it? Making the choice to leave with Michael, Liz and the others? Keeping in mind that I want complete honesty and I wouldn’t be mad at you if you did.”_

Maria huffed slightly and then shook her head. “No, I don’t regret it. I meant it then, and I mean it now: my place is with Michael and we’ll face whatever happens together. What I do regret is that Max, Isabel and Michael didn’t have a choice about leaving their homes and the people who cared about them. I regret that Liz and Kyle and I couldn’t trust anyone to help them as much as we wanted to. I regret that I couldn’t come up with a way to give them more safety or buy them more time so they hadn’t had to run the night of our graduation. I regret that there was nothing that we could tell the Parkers or my mom about why we weren’t safe. And, we weren’t safe. Liz may have only seen the four of them gunned down, but if Kyle and I had stayed behind, there was too much of a chance that we could have been grabbed and used as bait or threats to them.”

_“You’ve thought about that a lot, haven’t you?”_

“It was my cleverly thought out argument that I would have used if Michael had tried too hard to talk me out of going.”

_“His heart wasn’t in an argument like that. He wanted you with him, but was also worried about your safety and your happiness. I bet he never imagined that you would give up your dreams of stardom to be with him.”_

“Well, I admit that I haven’t always been the perfect girlfriend to him, but I do love him more than anything. I could never have chased my dreams without him and the rest of our family with me.” Maria turned to smile at the ghost walking at her side. “I wasn’t going to lose Liz and Michael like I lost you.”

Alex shook his head and then bumped her shoulder with his. _“I’m not lost, Maria. I’m always with you. Just sometimes, you don’t need me at your as much as you do during other times.”_

“Like I did tonight?”

_“Exactly. I could tell that you were having deep thoughts and you were sad. Therefore, I needed to make sure I was here when you left the bar.”_

“You’ve always known me so well, Alex. Even when we were kids, you could identify what kind of mood I was in or what I was thinking almost before I could.” Maria ran a hand through her hair, shaking some of the snow out of it. She tilted her head up for a moment to let some of the snow dust along her face before she dropped it back down to watch where she was walking. “I was thinking about all of our parents back home and how unfair it is that they can’t be told by us that we’re alive and alright.”

_“It sucks, I get it. If it helps, I check in on them fairly often. Amy and Jim are married and they spend a lot of time with the Parkers and the Evanses. They’re sad and missing you guys, but Liz’s journal helped a bit towards making them understand.”_

“Were you in the bar, earlier?”

_“Of course I was. You were singing. How could I have stayed away from that? What I want to know, is why Michael wasn’t there? Why did he leave you alone with no back up? That’s not like him where you’re concerned nowadays.”_

Maria smirked, shaking her head. “Max and Liz were there until the last song. If you look forward to where we’re almost at the motel, you’ll see that Michael is watching me walk and therefore can see that I’m alright and almost home.”

_“Has he heard the new song you wrote for him, yet?”_

“I’m planning on singing it for him tonight or in the morning,” she said with a soft smile as she pulled her coat tighter and shifted the guitar case to her other hand. “It’s been hell trying to tweak it without him being around to hear it.”

Alex laughed. _“I love that you work so hard to make sure you surprise him and he accidentally spoils it every time.”_

“Yeah, well, this year, he won’t spoil it because it’s something he would never guess or expect.”

_“Speaking of which, there’s your spaceboy, now. This is where I say I love you and that I’ll see you later.”_

“See you later, Alex,” she murmured as she felt the breeze against her cheek that meant he had kissed her goodbye.

A few inches more, and Michael was stepping down from the concrete walk in front of their door and pulling Maria into his arms. “Talking to yourself?”

“Sort of,” Maria nodded as she wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. “Talking to Alex.”

“Ah,” was all he said about it as he lifted her up onto the curb and walked with her into the motel room. “It’s harder for you, missing him around Christmas.”

“He was my best friend and the closest thing that I had to a brother before travelling with Max and Kyle. It’s been six years, but I still miss him like crazy.”

Michael nodded. “I didn’t know him as well as you guys and Isabel did, but I could tell that you girls meant the world to him. I don’t know what I would do if I lost Max like you lost Alex.”

“I would never want you to have to go through anything like that, Michael. It would hurt to know that you were dealing with that kind of pain.”

“It’s not easy seeing you deal with that kind of pain, either.” Michael retorted, taking Maria’s coat and tossing it across the back of a chair.

Maria reached out and pulled Michael back to her. “You know how much I love you, right?”

“Yeah, of course. You make sure to tell me often.”

“And, you know that I have no regrets about leaving Roswell with you?”

Michael frowned for a moment, looking down into her face. “I know that you made the choice on your own but…”

“But nothing, Michael,” Maria said, shaking her head. “I made my choice and I have no regrets. Do I wish that you had been given a choice as to whether you were leaving or not? Yes, yes I do. I hate that you guys were forced to leave everyone and everything you knew behind. Do I regret leaving everything behind to go with you? No. Not even for an instant. I knew exactly what I was doing.” Maria placed a hand against Michael’s cheek and smiled when he leaned into her touch.

“Maria…”

“No, love, listen to me, okay?” When he didn’t protest, she smiled. “I love you very much, Michael. I know that I’m not always the best girlfriend --”

“Don’t say that.” Michael was frowning at her now. “You’ve been amazing, Maria. You can be stubborn and obstinate, but those aren’t bad qualities. You being stubborn has saved all of us more than a few times.”

“Maybe so, but the point is, I haven’t always been the perfect girlfriend to you. I know I’ve gotten better, but back in Roswell a lot of our issues were just as much my fault as they were yours. In some situations, possibly more.” She looked into his eyes, smiling at the frown on his face. “The night of graduation, I was more unhappy than I had been in a long time. All I could think about was how I had lost you and that if anything happened, I would never know. Sitting there, I knew that my place wasn’t in Roswell, or California or even New York. My place was with my family… with you guys. And even though I had no way of knowing if Max, Liz and Isabel would join up with you when they left Roswell, I knew that I couldn’t stay behind. I already decided I was going with them and then when you showed up with Max, I was even more sure that I couldn’t just let you leave without me.”

“I never wanted this kind of life for you, Maria,” Michael finally said, bringing her hand to his lips so that he could kiss her palm. “I know that I’m not perfect, either, but I would have done just about anything to keep you safe and happy.”

“I’m safe and happy with you, Michael. I always have been and for the last five years, I’ve learned more and more that I am meant to be with you no matter where we go or what we have to do. I didn’t regret my decision then and I don’t regret it now.”

Michael gave up trying to stay unaffected by the conversation and pulled Maria tightly against him and burying his face in her hair. “You haven’t always been safe. You almost died.” 

Even now, a year and change later, Maria could hear in his voice how much that event still upset him.

“But I didn’t die. You were there and you brought me back.”

“Max and Liz brought you back.”

“No, Michael,” Maria said firmly. “ _You_ brought me back. You were the one I felt surrounding me with your magic. You’re the one I felt warming me up and pulling me back. Yes, Liz and Max were there with you, but I didn’t know that or feel them there until you managed to get me stable again. I know you don’t think you have any healing powers and don’t think you could have done anything since Max regained the King Mark, but I’m telling you, Michael, you’re the reason I’m alive.”

“You’re being stubborn again.”

“I’m being right.”

Michael sighed. “Even if I were to believe you that I healed you, there’s still the reality that if you hadn’t been with us, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“Whether they had met up with you or not, Michael, I would have been with Liz and therefore with Max and Isabel. It could have happened no matter what.” She shook her head. “Or, things could have been so much worse for me.”

“You would have been safer if you had stayed in Roswell, Maria. I can’t stop thinking about that.”

“And you’re wrong, Michael.” Maria pulled back only far enough to look up into Michael’s face. “Michael, the FBI men knew about all of us. What do you think would have happened to me after you guys left Roswell? They would have seen me as a bargaining chip to get you guys back to them, or I would have been used as bait. Worse case scenario, they could have held me, hurting me in an attempt to lure you guys out of hiding.”

It was evident from how gray Michael’s skin had turned that he had never thought about those possibilities. He swallowed a few times and shook his head.

“Maria…”

“But nothing like that happened because I was on the road with you.”

Michael pulled her close again and this time, she wrapped her arms around his waist to give him the comfort that she knew he needed.

“I would love nothing more than to go into that bedroom over there, crawl into bed with you and remind you again of how great we are together,” Maria said with a smile. “But…”

“But Isabel would kill us if we did that after all of the work she and I did tonight to decorate her and Kyle’s room for Christmas,” Michael acknowledged. 

“So, we go and have a family Christmas party. We enjoy the fact that we’re alive, free and all together with the ones we love the most in this world. After that?”

“After that, I lock us in here until it’s time to hit the road again.” The kiss that followed those words was full of promise and when Michael finally let her go, Maria swayed a little bit as she regained her equilibrium.

“Let’s go, Space Boy,” Maria said with a grin as she grabbed her coat again. “I think it’s going to be a long night for us both.”

Michael laughed as they left their room, locking it just to be safe. “Merry Christmas to me.”


End file.
